The Chris Moeller Archives

The baseball bucket list-- part 2

Let's wrap this up so we can move on to the next thing. It's my checklist of the second 25 things baseball fans should do before they die-- list courtesy of ESPN's Jim Caple...

- See Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, and Ichiro play in person and chant their names with a stadium packed with fans.

I've seen all three on the diamond, and at the same time, but the only players' names I've ever chanted are "Oz-zie" and "Ya-dee"

- Buy a fitted cap to replace the cheap stadium giveaway you got with the plastic adjustable strap in the back and the Piggly Wiggly logo on the side.

It's not Piggly Wiggly, it's Dierbergs. Also, guys with hair like me don't wear caps.

- Sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park.

Why would anybody want to do that?

- Recite "Casey at the Bat" and "Tinker to Evers to Chance."

I took a purple ribbon (designation: Outstanding) for my delivery of "Casey" at the 6th grade district arts festival (to the wonderment of all, I tore the cover off the ball). As to the other, I offer this:

On this day, they bid adieu,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Nevermore to share leather,
Or gonfalon stew.
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Unless, on that silver sandlot above,
Without hesitation, He hands them their gloves,
Looks toward the field and asks, if they might,
Shag flies behind Groat-to-Javier-to-White.

Dan O'Neill, St. Louis, Missouri, 1994


- Read the box scores religiously.

Pietistically.

- Join SABR.

I've been blackballed due to steroids.

- Get your favorite player's autograph.

Busch Stadium, west parking garage, August 1988, Ozzie Smith, on my scorecard

- Learn to throw a curveball.

Trick pitches always seemed unsportsmanlike to me

- Take a week-long road trip through the minors, the lower the league the better, and make sure to include a team owned by Mike Veeck.

This is seriously one of the two very best ideas on this list.

- Cheer the Rally Monkey.

And while you're at it, participate in the wave, sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park, and jump off a bridge.

- Eat at Boog's barbecue pit in Camden Yards, enjoy a Primanti Brothers sandwich at Pittsburgh's ballpark, the fish tacos in San Diego, a Dodger Dog at Dodger Stadium and garlic fries while circling the concourse in Seattle.

How about a Skyline Chili Dog in Cincinnati?

- Attend a game in the Caribbean.

This is the second of the two very best ideas on this list.

- Buy a bleacher ticket and sneak into a box seat.

Why would I want to sit with the bums in those boxes?

- Passionately argue in a bar over who belongs in the Hall of Fame.

This is what I'm doing on the nights I don't post on the blog.

- Collect baseball cards. Get your favorite player's rookie card and store it in a plastic sleeve. Treat all others the way God intended: by clothes-pinning them to the spokes of your bicycle in a pathetic attempt to make an engine noise.

Since I don't have a bicycle, I boxed up all the cards and put them in the corner of the storage room of my Dad's basement.

- Rub the Babe's nose in Monument Park.

I scratched his balls.

- Camp out in front of the stadium for tickets to see your favorite team in the postseason.

This is hard to do when you live six hours away. But I'm not making excuses.

- Try to throw a knuckleball.

First learn a curveball, now a knuckleball? That would give me the same number of pitches Todd Wellemeyer has. His two: balls and home runs.

- Try to catch a knuckleball.

This is why catchers wear masks.

- Catch a foul ball. And then hand it to the nearest kid.

For years, I planned to give the ball to a kid if I ever came up with a foul fly. Then, one afternoon at Sec Taylor in Des Moines, I grabbed a Jose Nieves pop ricocheting off the stadium roof. It's in my display case at home.

- Disobey your parents by staying up late to listen to a game with your transistor radio/iPhone tucked under your pillow.

My thing was recreating the games under the covers.

- Go to the All-Star Game.

Check. Last month.

- Kayak in McCovey Cove (yeah, Barry Bonds is gone, but San Francisco Bay is still there.)

Kayak in McCovey Cove? That sounds dirtier than eating fish tacos in San Diego.

- Eat a hot-fudge sundae in a mini batting helmet.

It was a strawberry sundae in a Cardinals mini batting helmet from Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Route 66 in South St. Louis for 63 cents the night in 1998 that Dad and I watched Mark McGwire hit his 63rd home run of the season. Pretty awesome, huh?

- And finally... See your team play in the World Series. (Sorry, this might not be applicable to Cubs, Mariners, Rangers, and Nationals fans.)

Check, 2004, but Pedro Martinez and the Red Sox threw a wet blanket over the entire evening.

posted by CM @ 8:28 PM